It’s interesting to see big media work with political realities.
The current issue of Time has Mark Halperin speculating that President Obama is on the ropes. Which is hardly contestable.

If the election were held today, the Obama-Biden ticket would not win the 270 electoral votes required to hold the White House. The coalition that helped elect the President–fired-up liberals, independents, business interests, a friendly media contingent–has been disbanded. Deep-pocketed conservative donors and Republican voters are desperate to depose the man they consider Jimmy Carter redux or worse. Democrats on Capitol Hill privately display nearly as much disdain for the Administration as their GOP counterparts, complaining about both its incompetence and its ideology. Most of all, Obama now owns a weak economy and hasn’t been…
Which is where the content for non-subscribers ends. But since I’m a subscriber, I’ll fill you in. Halperin goes on to say

Most of all, Obama now ownss a weak economy and hasn’t been able to generate his own luck.
I’ll let Time deliver the bottom line for their subscribers. But in the middle, Haperin asks and then answers the question “What advantages does Obama have?” Here’s a snip:

No one has a better record of taking up his game when everything is on the line. And he recently acknowledged he’d be willing to “grind it out a little bit” – presumably meaning “get tough” – when the time comes.
Which is precisely the times the president less represents the country than the particular base that elected him. After all, it's political…
A confluence of media coverage this week points to another political campaign going on, though more covertly, and it may just be my first take on it, granted.
But the cover of last week’s Time Magazine featured Hillary Clinton in a flattering feature of her command of the Secretary of State position. It caught my attention. Then, a week later, former president Bill Clinton was featured as a guest on Comedy Central’s Daily Show with Jon Stewart, with heavy emphasis on his book Back To Work, with the sub-title Why We Need Smart Government For A Strong Economy. It rang a bell. Re-checking that Time cover story, I noticed the title was “Hillary Clinton & The Rise of Smart Power.”
Smart coincidence? The 2012 presidential election is exactly one year away. Strategy rules.